


Withholding Wonder

by phoebesmum



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 22:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebesmum/pseuds/phoebesmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Casey considers all the things he knows about Dan</p>
            </blockquote>





	Withholding Wonder

**Author's Note:**

> Written November 2004.

_ The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery. - Anaïs Nin_

 

He's known Dan for ten years now. He knows him pretty well, he thinks: knows what makes him happy, what makes him sad; what makes him angry, and to what extent, on a scale that runs from 'frustrated', by way of 'pissed off', up to 'homicidal'. He knows how much Dan can drink and still carry on what passes, with him, for a sensible conversation; he's the first to recognise – it's not always easy to tell – when that line's been crossed, and someone needs to take Dan's car keys away and pour him into a cab. He knows how many aspirin Dan's going to need the following morning. More times than not, he's the one to provide them. Dan doesn't get that drunk, that often, and when he does, Casey usually knows the reason. Sometimes Casey _is_ the reason; he doesn't let his mind dwell on that.

 

He's never consciously set out to memorise any of this stuff, but if you asked him he could tell you what kind of takeout Danny prefers (Indian, although he'll settle for Chinese, and pizza's always good, too); what label beer, what brand of Scotch. He knows, because he's seen the bags, where Dan shops for clothes, and that he does so quite regularly, with no apparent sign of reluctance and, generally, to judge by the end result, successfully. That's just one of the many ways in which Dan is not like him. For another: he knows that Dan, unlike himself, can find his way around the Internet without too much trouble, and spends vast amounts on EBay collecting rare vinyl recordings of artists Casey has never heard of and who, when Danny plays him the records, he'd be glad to forget. He knows that Dan was born knowing more about music than he himself will ever learn in his life. He's okay with that. Music's just background noise, to him. He's never understood why, to Dan, it seems to verge on a religious experience.

 

And on that thought, he's never understood Dan's religion, either; it's not a thing they discuss. Once, early on, he'd thoughtlessly, semi-jokingly said 'Your people', and had seen Dan wince, and try, with rare tact, to hide it. That tactfulness in itself told him all he needed to know, and he's been more careful ever since then. He's come to realise that it's somehow a very large part of who and what Dan is, so much so that it never needs to be discussed or even thought of: it simply is. Elliott's much the same way, and so is Will. Jeremy, too, except when faced with Natalie's Episcopalian parents which, Casey has to admit, would be enough to make anyone a little paranoid. And it's not as though Jeremy didn't have a head start there.

 

He knows that sports, _Sports Night_, his work, are only one part of Dan's life: he reads, he visits museums and galleries, clubs, the theatre; he'll sometimes, voluntarily, watch a movie with subtitles. He knows that Dan pays someone to iron his shirts, following on from a hideous scorch mark incident early in his career. He knows that Dan can cook, but won't. He knows that Dan's mother can't cook, but sometimes sends him food packages anyway, and that Dan always tries his best to get through them but inevitably has to admit defeat and will eventually be found up on the roof of his apartment building, throwing burnt cake and stale cookies to the opportunistic pigeons who've learned to stalk him there.

 

He knows that Dan's big sister Karen moved to California so long ago that she's forgotten that New York isn't on the Arctic Circle; she sends him hand-knitted scarves and mittens and big, chunky sweaters all year round, which he dutifully wears from early fall until as close to summer as he can get without passing out in the subway from heatstroke. She knits very badly and the clothes are always lumpy and full of dropped stitches, plus she's either colour blind or mad – Casey will never forget one particular pale yellow-green sweater that made Dan look as though he were suffering from acute jaundice – but Danny wears them doggedly, infinitely loyal.

 

It's his sister, too, who sends Dan care packages at Passover. His mother sends them as well, it's true; usually about a week too late. Since she can't have forgotten Passover, Casey can only conclude that she's forgotten Danny instead.

 

Dan calls his parents at least once a week, still. And Casey always knows when he's come off the phone with them. There's always a silence: a silence like a cry of pain. Casey never breaks that silence. He knows that it's the only thing holding Dan together.

 

He knows that although ninety percent of the time Dan is a bundle of restless, nervous energy, every so often that energy will burn itself out and Dan will, simply, collapse and sleep for twenty four hours straight, sometimes more. The first time he'd known it happen, Dan was still in college and Casey had been scared out of his mind, his thoughts running to drugs or a brain tumour or leukaemia. Nowadays he knows the symptoms, and when he sees the warning signs he knows how to make Dan see them too and, if not relax – Dan doesn't relax, the word's not in his vocabulary – at least ease back a little, and slow down before he crashes. He knows enough not to use that particular analogy in Dan's hearing.

 

He knows that Dan would like to solve all the world's problems, from the war and famine and poverty so beloved by pageant queens, through the falling standards in professional sports, down to the current still sorrier state of prime-time television. He knows that Dan takes refuge from his inability to make any significant difference to any of it in sarcasm and flippancy. People who don't know him sometimes think he comes across as jaded, even callous. Those people _really_ don't know him. Not at all.

 

He knows what type of woman Dan prefers; he knows that while Danny will sleep with just about any girl who smiles nicely at him, the women he falls in love with are always of a kind: classy and intelligent and quietly attractive, not the pretty, flashy, trashy bimbos who fall into Dan's arms (and bed) with such astonishing regularity. He knows, too, that sooner or later those classy, intelligent, attractive women will end up breaking Dan's heart (the way that Rebecca did, and Cassie before her, and, way back in college again, Johanna), and that someone else will be left to pick up the pieces. He knows that 'someone else' is going to be him. Even when he was married; even when Dan lived on the other side of the country. Even then, Casey was the one who Danny turned to. And if he pretended to himself, sometimes, that he resented it, that he had his own life to live ... well: he knew well enough, if he were honest with himself, that it _was_ only a pretence.

 

He knows what Dan's opinion will be on just about any subject; he knows how he'll react to almost any situation. _Almost_ any situation. He knows that Danny's words generally mean very little, while his silences can often express volumes.

 

He wonders sometimes how it would affect Danny's silence if he, Casey, if he reached out one day – one day when Dan pushed back his chair and stretched, the long curve of his throat exposed, his teeshirt riding up to bare a shallow, tempting line of pale flesh – and if he were to kiss him there, there in the office; if he were to take him home, undress him, make love to him as he so badly wants to, as he's longed to do almost since the day they met. How (Casey wonders), how would Dan react to that?

 

That's one thing that Casey doesn't know; one thing that he's too afraid to find out.

 

There are other things, too, that he doesn't know. He doesn't know what sounds Danny makes when he's turned on, or how he likes to be touched, or where; how his face changes when he comes, or whose name he calls. He's seen Dan naked, or partly naked, many times: in bathrooms, in the shower at the gym, on the beach, changing for the show. But there are gaps in his knowledge; there are things he'd still like to learn.

 

He knows Dan's moods: how kind he can be and how generous sometimes; how he can't bear to see another person hurting and not try to help. And yet, at other times he can be petty, irritable, unreasonable, impatient. But he's always (almost always) been patient with Casey, these ten years, in spite of all that Casey's put him through.

 

Because Casey knows himself, too. He knows that he's no saint. He knows that he can be mean and selfish and judgmental; he knows he can be weak and cowardly. He knows that _Sports Night_, the show, his public persona – he knows that these things are the greatest part of who he is. He knows that if he lost them, he'd be left with nothing. He knows he'll never take that risk.

 

And that's why, in all this time, he's never acted on his impulse. He's never reached out and touched, no matter how tempting; never so much as brushed a dry kiss against Dan's cheek as Dan dozes on the couch in their office. Never so much as that.

 

And, oh, to touch, to kiss, to give in to that temptation – how easy would that be? But to follow through … Well; that's another story entirely. Even if things were not as they are, if he were not who he was, still he doesn't think he could handle it. Not even for Dan. He doesn't know how to be Danny's lover. In many ways, not least the purely literal. He's not gay; he's never had a homosexual experience, not even a teenage experiment. (Dan, he's certain, has. Dan, he sometimes believes, seems to have tried _everything_.) He knows the principles; but the practice … no. The thought doesn't repulse him, exactly; it even excites him, sometimes. He's just not certain he could carry it through.

 

And if he fell short, if he promised what he couldn't deliver, he knows the look that would be in Dan's eyes, the look that Danny turns on fools and cheats and liars, on people who don't come up to his expectations or who live down to them only too well; the look of reproach, of tired, resigned disappointment. He's seen it many times before. It's even been directed at him. But always, before, he's been forgiven.

 

This – this would be unforgivable. This would change everything.

 

He doesn't even want to begin to think about how much damage he could do. To Danny, who is broken to begin with. To himself; he's not much better. To their friendship. To who they are, and to everything they know.

 

And so Casey only looks, never touches.

 

And if Dan ever thinks to ask for more – then that's another silence that remains unbroken.

 

***

 


End file.
